Robert & Kristen Anderson-Lopez Talk Composing for Disney's FROZEN

While the folks at Disney are chosing to call their highly anticipated animated film FROZEN "a movie with songs," the project is looking a lot like a musical. Especially with 'Avenue Q' and 'Book of Mormon' Tony-winning composer Robert Lopez, and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez writing the music for the film. In an interview posted on today's Variety.com, the couple spoke about the exciting animated project.

"I think they wanted us to be funny," jokes Lopez of his Disney bosses. Adds Anderson-Lopez, "We thought, this is our chance to make a really funny Disney princess - a real person that our generation has been waiting for: the one that's not perfect, that gets pooped on, is clever and smart and has a sense of humor. I was really excited when (co-director) Jennifer Lee came on board. She had just come off 'Wreck-It Ralph.'

The husband and wife duo felt pressure to keep up with the high standards set by the award-composing writing team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who penned such classics as Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid. "Whenever we were feeling particularly lost, our battle cry was, 'What would Ashman do?' " says Anderson-Lopez, "because he was such a force not only as a lyricist but he understood how to tell a story using music."

The Lopezes took a year and a half in total to complete their work to their satisfaction, writing about 25 songs for the film, two-thirds of which were eventually discarded. "We wrote this whole song that ended with a list of terrible things that could happen to your feet, including plantar warts and athlete's foot," admits Anderson-Lopez. "John Lasseter heard it and he was like, 'What?! How did we get onto foot fungus?!' "

The writers didn't have to go far to be inspired to write music for the film which is set in the cold, snowy climate of the Scandinavian mountain pastures. "We don't have to go anywhere," quipped Lopez. "We live in New York City."